30 September 2013

One
more post before September ends, and this is just a basic hummus
recipe. I know hummus can be bought anywhere, but by making it
yourself it's fresh and you'll know what went into it. Hummus is a
great chickpea dip for finger food and paste for veggie sandwiches and burgers and simply has to be a part of any vegan's or vegetarian's diet. I
especially like a simple and light lunch of vegetable sticks and
hummus as a dip.

As I use dried chickpeas for my hummus
the preparation takes overnight, but it's totally worth the wait.

Ingredients

200g dried
chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

1 lemon's juice

4tbsp olive oil

4tbsp water

1tsp paprika

1tsp cumin

1tsp salt

Method

Cover the dried
chickpeas with cold water and let them soak overnight. Then bring
them to the boil. First heavily boil them for a couple of minutes and
then let them boil slower for about one hour until they are soft.
Stir occasionally.

Let the chickpeas
cool and then continue with the preparations. Chop the garlic and
squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl. Add the chickpeas and season
with paprika, cumin and salt. Add the olive oil and water and puree
into an even paste. Taste again and add more seasoning or more fluid
if needed.

Drizzle little
olive oil and paprika on the top for serving and that's it.

I will be posting
dishes where I have used my hummus later. Until then, stay hungry!

29 September 2013

I am
quite surprised that my most popular blog post so far is the one
about full English vegetarian breakfast. You can read the original
post here. I called today's post Full English vegetarian breakfast 2.0
because I wanted to revisit and improve my original post and make
another English breakfast suggestion. This time I added a firm
favourite to it: hash browns. These little fried potato cakes are
lovely for breakfast.

The amount I cooked here will feed two
very hungry adults.

Hash browns

This recipe makes
six small hash browns.

300g potatoes
grated

1 small onion

1 egg

1tsp salt

Ground black
pepper

Vegetable oil for
frying

Grate the potatoes
and remove the excess fluid of them. I did this by pressing them in a
potato ricer. If you use the smallest setting of the ricer, it won't
press the grated potatoes through, but just squeezes the fluid out.

Chop the onion
very finely and add it to the potatoes. Add the egg, salt and pepper
and mix. I shaped the hash browns by using a small round cookie
cutter. Place the cutter on a spatula, put the potato mix in there
and press it firmly to shape. Then just slide the hash brown off the
spatula straight into the pan.

Fry the hash
browns on both sides until golden brown.

Cheese omelette

2 eggs

4tbsp milk

Little Double
Gloucester cheese grated

Nettle salt (any
other will do)

Ground black
pepper

2-3 fresh basil
leaves

Vegetable oil for
frying

Mix all the
ingredients together and fry the omelette on both sides at moderate
heat.

Other components

1 can of baked
beans in tomato sauce – The beans just need warming up in a
saucepan.

Fried bread –
Fry bread slices in little vegetable oil until crispy.

6 Cumberland
vegetarian sausages – I just used ready made sausages from the
shop. Bake them in the oven for a while.

Serve the
breakfast with coffee or tea and orange juice. Then prepare to get
full!

28 September 2013

If
you are a regular reader you know that I love to make different
vegetarian burgers and here comes another variation of those. I
altered slightly my original lentil burger recipe by adding an
aubergine and served the patties with my swede and seed rolls that I published
earlier this month and fried halloumi.

These are very easy to make, try them! This recipe makes a fairly big batch, but they are great to be frozen for a later
use.

Ingredients

150ml green
lentils

150ml red lentils

1 aubergine

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 green chili

3 eggs

1-2dl flour

2tbsp vegetable
stock powder

4tbsp chopped
fresh parsley

2tsp herb salt

2tsp ground black
pepper

Vegetable oil for
frying

Method

Rinse and cook the
lentils until they are soft. The green ones take slightly longer to
boil soft, but it's nice to have a few firmer ones among them. I also
add vegetable stock powder to the boiling water to add extra taste.

Chop the onion,
garlic and chili. Grate the aubergine. Add these ingredients to the
lentils once they are boiled and cooled.

Season the mix
with parsley, herb salt and black pepper. Add the eggs and flour. You
might need more or less flour to make the paste firm. It needs to
have the right consistency so that you'll be able to make burger
patties of it.

Heat a generous
amount of vegetable oil in a pan to moderate heat. Shape burger
patties of the lentil mix and fry them on both sides until they are
fully cooked through and golden brown. After frying remove excess oil
from the burgers with a kitchen roll.

26 September 2013

A while ago I was
able to take part in a brewery tour at the Meantime Brewing Company
in Greenwich, London. Meantime brews quality craft beer and in their
selection they have everything from Wheat Beer, Porter, Lager to
India Pale Ale among others. As you may remember I'm not a massive beer drinker, but I very much enjoy their beers, especially the Pilsener, which reminds me of Germany.

During the brewery
tour we learned about the international history of beer and of the brewery itself
and were introduced to many of their beers. We were also offered actual barley, hops and malt to taste. There were even some hops pellets,
which were rather strong and bitter in their taste, but it was fun
tasting all those things. Then we were taken around the brewery while Meantime's beer brewing techniques were explained.

Not far from the
brewery Meantime also has their pub The Old Brewery with a large
beer garden and it's well worth a visit as well. You can also come
across Meantime products in many other pubs, shops and food markets.

25 September 2013

I like savoury
upside down pies a lot and this is one of my most recent creations. I
think this is a very suitable dish for September as I used mini leeks
and new potatoes cooked in fondant potato style.

I think it was
easy to make, because there is no pastry making involved. This is how
I made this tart.

Ingredients

320g puff pastry
sheet

8-10 mini leeks

10-12 small new
potatoes

A few sprigs of
thyme

1tbsp vegetable
stock powder

50g butter

1tsp salt

2tbsp sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven
to 180C.

Prepare about 2dl
vegetable stock. Cut the new potatoes in half. Heat little butter in
a saucepan at moderate heat. Place the potatoes into the saucepan and
let them fry for a couple of minutes without moving them. Then pour
the vegetable stock into the saucepan and add some thyme. Let the
potatoes simmer under the lid until almost cooked. Just remember to
make sure that the pan isn't too hot and the potatoes won't burn.

Heat butter in
another pan and gently fry the leeks in there for a few minutes. Add
the salt and sugar and heat it all for further couple of minutes.
Brush a cake tin with some of this butter, salt and sugar mix from
the leek pan.

Place the leeks
into the bottom of the cake tin and also pour the rest of the butter
on them. Then add the potatoes on the top of them and some more
thyme. Finally put the puff pastry sheet into the tin and press it
down to the edges.

Bake the tart at
180C for about 30 minutes. After baking carefully turn it upside down
and enjoy it warm.

22 September 2013

As
you may already know The VegHog used to live in Germany and its
kitchen has been somewhat influenced by some German dishes. German
cuisine tends to be very meaty, but you can find rare vegetarian gems
among the traditional food. One of those gems is Kartoffelpuffer,
also called Reibekuchen,
which are potato fritters made of grated potatoes. Kartoffelpuffer
are offered at pretty much every German public outdoor event and it's
indeed nice to get a vegetarian alternative offered.

I'm
going to share my Kartoffelpuffer
recipe
with you today. I
made my potato fritters fairly traditionally German, but added a
British twist to the dish by serving them with apple chutney. Germans
would eat their potato fritters with apple puree, but I wanted
something more savoury and a British style chutney seemed to be the
right choice.

Ingredients for the apple chutney:

2 pink lady apples

1 small onion

50ml cider vinegar

50ml dry cider (I
used Wyld Wood organic cider)

80g sugar

Salt

Let's start by
making the chutney. This recipe doesn't make such a huge amount, but
multiply the ingredients if you want to store some of this chutney
for a later use. Grate the apples and chop the onion very finely.
Heat the onion, grated apples, sugar, salt, vinegar and cider gently
in the pan. Let it simmer at low heat for about 20-30 minutes until
the consistency becomes sticky. If needed add more sugar or cider.
Then let this chutney cool and make the fritters.

Ingredients for the potato fritters:

1kg potatoes

1 large onion

3 eggs

2tbsp flour

Nutmeg

Salt

Black pepper

Vegetable oil for
frying

Grate the potatoes
and chop the onion finely. You could also grate the onion if you have
a good device for doing it. Dry the potatoes with a tea towel or
kitchen roll in order to remove the excess fluid. Mix the potatoes
and onion with the eggs and flour. Season the mix with salt, pepper
and nutmeg. Add more flour if the mixture is too moist. The fritters
should stick together nicely in the pan.

Heat vegetable oil
in a pan and shape fritters of the potato mix. Normally
Kartoffelpuffer tend to be quite large, but you can make smaller ones
if you prefer. I would call mine medium size. Fry the fritters at moderate heat on both sides until
they are golden brown and crispy outside and fully cooked inside.

Serve them with
the apple chutney. For serving I also made a few fresh apple strings
as decoration.

18 September 2013

Recently I started
sprouting seeds again. I bought different seeds and a new sprouting
jar, which is a convenient tool for sprouting seeds as its lid is a
sieve. You don't necessarily need such a sprouter as long as you
rinse your sprouts twice a day. It's a lot of fun and the produce is
ready in a few days and so tasty and healthy.

Alfalfa is a nice
little sprout to add to salads, but this one I made with mung beans,
which I like very much. This makes quite a nice and light lunch or
side salad.

Salad:

½tbsp mung beans
(volume before sprouting)

1 small red pepper

Lettuce

Shallot vinaigrette:

1 small shallot

5tbsp olive oil

4tbsp cider
vinegar

Herb salt

Black pepper

If you sprout the
mung beans from the seeds, you'll need a few days for completion of
this salad and can watch the sprouts grow. Of course mung beans can
also be purchased already sprouted.

Once you have the
mung beans, start by making the vinaigrette. Chop the shallot very
finely and fry it in olive oil for about 10 minutes. Take the pan off
heat and add the other ingredients and mix. Puree the vinaigrette if
there are too large shallot chunks.

Prepare the
lettuce for the salad and chop the pepper. Mix them with the mung
beans and pour the vinaigrette on the salad. Done!

17 September 2013

I just noticed a
curious thing: among all these recipe posts there isn't a single
couscous dish, although it's one of my favourites! I really need to
correct this mishap immediately and therefore I'm posting a couscous
dish today.

Couscous is a
brilliant ingredient for vegetable dishes. For this one I chose onion
squash as the main vegetable, it's sweet and nutty and perfect in
couscous. Instead of regular couscous I used giant couscous and it
was very flavoursome variation since I also cooked it in vegetable
stock.

Ingredients

½ onion squash

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

100g giant
couscous

200ml vegetable
stock

100g fresh
tomatoes

Couple of
sun-dried tomatoes

A few pine nuts

Thyme

Nettle salt (this
is not a necessity, normal salt or herb salt are just fine as well)

Ground black
pepper

Vegetable oil

Method

Cut an onion
squash in half and remove the seeds. Place one half on a baking dish
and brush the squash half with oil. Save the other half for another
tasty dish. I have some nice squash recipes here, have a look! Roast
it at 180C for about 40 minutes or until tender. When the squash is
roasted cut it into small cubes.

Prepare a
vegetable stock and add very finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes there
and season it with thyme. Leave it to rest for a while.

Chop the shallots
and the garlic and fry them in oil. Add the tomatoes, the pine nuts
and then the onion squash cubes to the pan. Leave it at low heat
while you prepare the couscous in a separate pan.

The preparation of
the giant couscous is slightly different than that of regular
couscous. Fry the couscous lightly in a little olive oil. Add the
vegetable stock to the pan once the couscous is fried golden brown.
Stir continuously until all the water has absorbed, but add more
water if the couscous isn't tender yet. Cooking of the giant couscous
takes about 15 minutes.

Combine the squash
and the couscous and mix. Season with salt and pepper. And there it
is, a very easy autumnal vegan squash couscous.

15 September 2013

It's raining
outside, so finally I'm officially allowed to post squash dishes like
this, right? Gem squashes are small, mild, creamy and delicate. They
taste nice and subtle and are quite versatile little vegetables.
Today I roasted them with a stuffing and served with lovely baked new
potatoes.

I decorated the
squashes with some parmesan crisps (obviously made out of vegetarian
parmesan), and don't they look cute on these gems! You can make some
quickly: just grate vegetarian parmesan and place it on baking paper
in circles. Bake at 200C for about 5 minutes until they are crispy.
Let them chill after baking. Make sure you don't eat all of them
before you get to decorating the dish.

Ingredients for the roasted gem squashes:

3 gem squashes

Vegetarian pasta
cheese

Sage

Parsley

Rosemary

Lemon zest

Lemon & pepper
bread crumbs

2 garlic cloves

Ingredients for the baked new potatoes:

New potatoes

Olive oil

Sea salt

Paprika powder

Pre-heat the oven
to 180C. Wash the new potatoes and cut off any bad bits but don't
peel them. Roll them in a olive oil, sea salt and paprika powder mix
and place on a baking tray. Bake them in an oven dish for about 40 minutes until they
are soft with a golden brown outer skin. They could take longer
depending on the size.

Cut the gem
squashes in half and remove the seeds. Scoop some of the squash out
by leaving a thin squash shell. Save some of the squash insides for
the stuffing and then prepare the other stuffing ingredients. Grate
some vegetarian pasta cheese (same as vegetarian parmesan) and mix it
with the chopped herbs, garlic and grated lemon zest. Add some lemon
and pepper bread crumbs and there you have the lemony and cheesy
stuffing.

Place the stuffing
on the squash halves and bake them at 180C for about 30 minutes until
the squash halves are baked and the cheese has melted. Decorate with
the parmesan crisps and serve with the baked new potatoes. I served them with a side salad. If you
think the dish is too dry add some homemade herb butter to the
potatoes.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
Follow theveghog on Instagram and @TheVegHog on Twitter!